This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2498.
Don't make a snap judgment about these English phrases.
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Do you make snap judgments or knee-jerk reactions?
Today in this part two of our series, get more ways to say that you react quickly and learn how it can be a connection topic.
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
Good, Aubrey.
How are you doing today?
How's it going?
Excellent.
I have a question for you.
Okay.
Do you ever find yourself making snap judgments about people?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think if we're all honest, we just do this.
The brain is kind of wired to do this.
I think it comes back to the lizard brain.
We can notice it and we can override it.
But I think the brain just automatically does it sometimes.
That's why we talk about first impressions being so important, because sometimes people can't help but make a snap judgment.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
It's so true.
It's everywhere.
And it's crazy.
If you think about the implications of that, it's far reaching, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
For work and personal life, you could lose out on friendships.
If you make a snap judgment about someone else or they do, crazy.
So this is interesting.
This is part two of a series.
Part one was vocabulary for snap decisions, rash spur of the moment decisions.
So stay to the end and we'll share that episode number if you missed it, because you can definitely listen to these out of order.
And be sure to hit the follow button so you're not missing anything, right?
If you're not following, you are missing key episodes, maybe bonuses or Saturday episodes.
So hit the follow button wherever you listen or subscribe if you're on YouTube.
Yes, absolutely.
All right, let's dive in with our first phrase here, snap judgment.
So we said in part one, be careful not to confuse this with a snap decision.
Snap judgment is like a quick opinion or conclusion formed without having all the information, maybe without careful thought.
Yeah.
So, for example, I tried not to make a snap judgment about your boyfriend, but he really seems like a jerk.
That's not good.
I know this will happen, right?
Your first impression of someone will be really bad.
So you find yourself making a snap judgment, trying to give someone the benefit of the doubt, but they're just really not earning it.
No.
Yeah, it can happen for sure.
What else?
Is there another example?
Yeah.
Don't make a snap judgment about this hotel.
It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's actually really nice.
Yes.
It's not just about people.
Right.
You might make a snap judgment about a restaurant, a menu, anything where, if you decide quickly that you, it's either going to be awful or amazing.
That's a snap judgment.
Yeah.
You miss out on so much richness of life.
Right.
If you do this and then rash judgment, is this basically the same thing?
It's a little different, but similar.
It's more like a judgment that's made recklessly quickly without considering the consequences.
So often there's this definitely a rash judgment is always negative, right?
Something happens.
There's usually some kind of consequence.
And then you realize like that was a rash judgment.
Okay.
So for example, casting a rash judgment about someone's character can lead to unfair treatment.
Yeah.
And I like a bonus for today, casting.
I'm not talking about casting a fishing line, right?
Right.
No, we'll say casting judgment on someone.
Yeah.
And this is true.
If you make an assumption about someone's character, this is reckless, right?
You could accidentally start a rumor or offend someone because you're making an assumption about their character.
That's very true.
What else, Aubrey?
Another sample?
Here's another example.
He realized his rash judgment of the project caused delays later.
So this is?
It is similar to a snap judgment, but snap judgment we use often more about that first impression, more about like an opinion we've created about someone, and a rash judgment is more like a reckless decision or judgment that's made that has negative consequences later.
Okay, so slight difference, and our listeners are ready for this kind of you know uh, kind of grabbing the nuances of the differences between these kinds of terms.
They are ready for it.
Aubrey, jump to conclusions would be the next one.
What does that mean?
Yeah, so this is making a decision or forming a belief too quickly, before you have all the evidence, before you are able to consider all of the implications.
I do this a lot.
I find myself jumping to conclusions.
Yeah, for sure.
Of course.
For example, she jumped to conclusions about the new hire just because he was quiet in meetings.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good point.
So in American business culture, if you're quiet, I think the problem is that can lead that tends to lead to more negative judgments.
About you.
Right.
I assume someone's boring, someone that they have nothing to say when that's not always true.
Right.
They just might not be a huge talker, or maybe they think before they speak, which are both positive attributes, or maybe coming from a culture where the idea is to let people in different statuses in the company speak first.
There could be a lot there.
Good point.
Right.
Or you might say to someone don't jump to conclusions until until you hear all of the details of the project.
Right.
So you might be in a meeting giving someone some information and you can see in people's eyes they're jumping to conclusions.
They're making assumptions about what it is like.
OK, wait till you hear all the information.
Yes.
Or a premature assumption would be our fourth one or a conclusion.
It's an assumption that is formed before all the necessary information is known.
Our listeners are going to have a lot of ways to say this by the end of the episode.
Exactly.
These are all pretty similar and we use them all a lot, right?
So for example, the doctor warned against making a premature assumption about the test results.
And these are pretty interchangeable for something like this.
You could say the doctor warned about jumping to conclusions, you know, about the test results.
Right.
Or his premature conclusion that she wasn't interested cost him a second date.
Oh, yeah.
People really shoot themselves in the foot sometimes in the dating world if they have low confidence and they kind of assume someone's not interested if they don't get in touch right away and then they just sabotage things.
Absolutely.
This happens all the time, right?
We're making assumptions without communicating and finding all of the information.
There are all kinds of reasons someone might not have texted you back.
Exactly.
Not good.
Knee jerk reaction is another one I love.
And we have to think when we go to the doctors and then the doctor.
I'm not sure if the doctor does that anymore.
Maybe for your reflexes.
He hits the little hammer thing.
That's what happens.
That actually just happened to me the other day.
Someone was trying to get my attention and they kind of hit my knee to get my attention and my neck, my leg, shot out, because they just hit me right perfectly in that spot.
That's the idea.
I mean, that's basically exactly what we're saying.
It's an automatic emotional response that's made without thought or reflection, right?
So it's like the physical version of it is the doctor hitting your knee.
And then this is the conversational version.
Exactly.
So, for example, her knee jerk reaction to the criticism was to get defensive.
So this is your immediate emotional response.
You get defensive without thinking through like, OK, what did they really mean?
What should I really be feeling about this?
Yeah.
Or politicians are often criticized for their knee jerk reactions instead of thoughtful solutions.
Yeah, this definitely happens, right?
If we don't feel like someone's thinking through all of the repercussions, they're just making these snap decisions.
It can seem like a knee jerk reaction.
Yeah, we have high expectations for politicians as we should.
So there you go.
Right.
Welcome to be level headed.
Yes.
I'll see you next time.
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Okay, Aubrey, let's mix it all up into a role play because these are our signature role plays at All Ears English and our listeners love them.
So here we are friends and we're chatting.
Yes, I'll start us.
I totally made a snap judgment about Mark last night.
He seemed so quiet and I assumed he was boring, but then he ended up being really fun.
Yeah, I do that sometimes too.
I made a rash judgment last week about someone at work.
I thought she was rude when I first met her, but she was just stressed that day.
It's easy to do.
I tend to jump to conclusions too quickly.
Like if someone doesn't text back right away, I assume they're mad at me.
I do that too.
Remember when I made that premature assumption about my neighbor's dogs?
I thought they'd be barking all hours of the night, but it was just that one time.
Yeah, I'm always making knee-jerk reactions like that.
Sounds like we both need to give people the benefit of the doubt a little more.
Yeah.
Do you have any example?
Like, have you ever met someone like that where they seemed kind of boring at first and then...
They just warmed up more or another time when you saw them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had a good friend in college that he was so quiet and he's like you would assume he was boring, but he he had the really sharp witty humor.
He just would like.
It almost made it better because he would wait until the perfect moment to say something really funny.
But you love to have him around because it was worth it to wait for those different personality.
Right.
For sure.
Interesting.
OK, good example.
So should we go through the role play?
Yeah, I started with I totally made a snap judgment about Mark last night.
So I'm just assumed he was going to be boring because he was a little quiet.
I could call that a snap judgment.
I didn't have all the facts yet.
And then I said, I do that too.
I made a rash judgment last week about someone at work, right?
I thought they were rude, but then I just realized they were stressed.
And so this would probably imply that you either said something to someone else or to them.
There was some kind of negative consequence.
I would think if you say like oh, I made a rash judgment.
I probably would be like did you say something to her?
What happened?
Right.
Yeah.
The conversation would continue there, right?
On that trend.
But then what did you say?
Then I said, I tend to jump to conclusions too quickly.
If someone doesn't text back right away, I assume they're mad at me.
I like this jump to conclusions.
I probably say this the most of all of these.
Like, oh, I jumped to conclusions when I thought something that was wrong.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I do the same thing.
I mean, I do the same thing.
I do jump to conclusions.
And I also use jump to conclusions a lot.
And I want to highlight here what you said.
You said it's easy to do.
That's a real connection moment.
Because you're resonating with me, right?
Right.
I'm letting you, I'm not judging you.
I'm sharing that like I do this too.
It's easy to do.
That is such a good phrase for helping you feel like I understand.
I don't think it was so terrible because anyone could make that mistake.
That can build the relationship right there.
And then again, I did it too.
Oh, I do that too.
So we're really resonating with each other here.
Three times in a row.
I do that sometimes too.
It's easy to do.
Oh, I do that too.
Yeah.
And part of that is so that I can have a say something else, to use this vocab, but this didn't feel.
It felt natural still.
And it would be strange if we just said these things, we're just listing things that we do, right?
These transitions between to show care and to like, transition into saying something else, just make it feel more natural.
To transition back to yourself a little bit, right?
You're going to tell your story now, you need to...
It would be weird if you just started... You have to acknowledge what they've said.
Yeah.
Totally.
Yeah.
And so then I said, remember when I made this premature assumption about my neighbor's dogs?
We talked about the dogs.
And then you said, Aubrey, last one.
I'm always making knee-jerk reactions like that.
It sounds like we both need to give people the benefit of the doubt a bit more.
We said this a couple of times.
This is sort of a bonus phrase that means to trust someone and assume good intentions, right?
A lot of these...
Snap judgments were usually not assuming the best intentions.
Giving someone the benefit of the doubt is the opposite.
Yes.
Love it.
The benefit of the doubt.
That's a good one, right?
That was kind of a bonus there.
Yeah.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Love that.
Another episode to go to is 2494.
Avoid making rash decisions with your English vocabulary.
That was the first part of this series, right?
Exactly.
Right.
So if you missed it, go check out part one for vocab about these spur of the moment decisions, rash decisions, because there are nuances there.
They're all used a little bit differently.
Yeah.
What's the takeaway for today's episode, Aubrey?
Well, we all do this.
Like we were saying, we all make snap judgments.
So first takeaway is to give people the benefit of the doubt more, but also use this as a connection topic.
You are not the only one that does this.
So just like in our role play here, we can admit that we do this and share, build this solidarity.
Yeah.
And we've seen how to do it by saying things like, I do that too.
Same here.
And we can explore this more in another episode.
But just those are bonuses for today.
How you can see such a topic can be a connection moment.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Awesome.
So share, right?
If you make snap judgments to share with someone and build the connection.
Don't be afraid.
Yeah, exactly.
Guys, if you love our style where we bring every episode back to connection hit, follow right here, wherever you're listening to the podcast or in YouTube, because this episode is on YouTube.
All right.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
This is really fun.
I will see you next time.
Okay.
Bye, Aubrey.
Have a good day.
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